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165 Search Engine Usage Statistics October 2026

Updated 165 primary-source citations Refreshed monthly

On this page
  1. Key Takeaways
  2. How many people use a search engine, and how often?
  3. Which search engine leads in each country and on each device?
  4. Do privacy-focused and regional engines have real audiences?
  5. How much do default deals and regulators decide where people search?
  6. Are social platforms and AI assistants replacing the search box?
  7. How much do people search by voice and by image?
  8. Methodology and Sources

Search engine usage statistics for 2026 describe a market that looks fixed at the top and shifts underneath it. Google's worldwide share has stayed between 88.72% and 93.37% in every month since January 2009 (StatCounter, Sep 2026). What has changed is who searches, on which screen, and through whose default.

The page covers how many people search and how often, which engine leads in each country and on each device, the privacy-focused and regional engines, the default deals and rulings that steer queries, and the social platforms, AI assistants, voice search and image search that now take some of them. Each number links to the organisation that produced it, including court opinions, regulators and company filings, with the date of its data. Where a company reports its own numbers, or a vendor panel is the only source, the text says so. The page is refreshed every month.

Key Takeaways

How many people use a search engine, and how often?

Search is still a near-universal habit, but it is no longer a rising one. The measured decline is small in most countries and large in China, and the age gap lies in the tool people search with.

Search engine usage statistics: share of internet users aged 16 and over who use a search engine each month, Q4 2023 to Q4 2025, falling from 82.4% in Q2 2024 to 79.3% in Q4 2025
Figure 1: Monthly search engine use peaked at 82.4% of internet users in Q2 2024 and fell in five of the next six quarters, a small move that took the series below 80% for the first time. Source: DataReportal, data from GWI, Digital 2026 Mid-Year Global Update Report, Apr 2026. Chart published by the source, captured 14 Oct 2026.

What share of internet users search every month?

About four in five, and a little more outside China and Russia. The figure has drifted down since the middle of 2024.

How many searches does a person run in a day?

Several, on Google alone in the UK. Worldwide the count is billions a day, and about one search in seven is a phrase Google has not seen before.

Do younger and older people search differently?

Not mainly in whether they search: monthly use sits between about 75% and 86% in every age and gender group GWI reports. The difference is the tool, because under-35s reach for an AI assistant far more often for anything beyond a simple fact.

  • Monthly search use among women is 80.6% at ages 16 to 24 and 81.5% at 25 to 34, against 79.1% and 79.7% for men (DataReportal, data from GWI, Apr 2026).
  • Monthly search use is 74.7% for women and 78.9% for men aged 55 to 64, and 85.3% and 86.1% at 65 and over, where GWI warns the data is not yet available in every country (DataReportal, data from GWI, Apr 2026).
  • For less simple questions, 68% of UK smartphone users aged 16 to 24 most often use a search app or browser, against 85% of those aged 65 and over (CMA, consumer survey data tables, Jun 2025).
  • For the same questions, 24% of 16 to 24 year olds most often use an AI product, against 4% of those aged 65 and over (CMA, consumer survey data tables, Jun 2025).
  • For simple facts such as the date of an event, 83% of 16 to 24 year olds most often use a search app or browser, against 91% of those aged 55 and over (CMA, consumer survey data tables, Jun 2025).
  • 40% of UK smartphone users use an AI product, rising to 62% of 16 to 24 year olds and falling to 18% of those aged 65 and over (CMA, consumer survey report, Jun 2025).
  • Men are more likely than women to use an AI product, 44% against 36%, and students more likely than retirees, 72% against 18% (CMA, consumer survey report, Jun 2025).
  • Search as the main gateway to news is unchanged for older audiences but down 3 percentage points among people under 35 (Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2026, Jun 2026).

For what happens to clicks after the search, see SEO statistics.

Which search engine leads in each country and on each device?

Google's worldwide lead depends on the screen. On phones it is close to complete; on desktops Microsoft's default placement keeps Bing in double digits, and in Japan it has put Bing ahead of Google.

Search engine market share in Japan from September 2025 to September 2026, with Bing rising from under 10% to above 30% as Google fell below 60%
Figure 2: Bing's line climbed from under 10% to above 30% of Japanese searches in a year while Google's fell from nearly 80% to below 60%, a reminder that national markets can move fast even when the worldwide average is flat. Source: StatCounter, Search Engine Market Share Japan, Sep 2026. Screenshot of the source page, cropped to the chart, captured 14 Oct 2026.

How does market share change between desktop, tablet and phone?

Rivals live on desktop and tablet. Bing holds about one search in seven on desktops worldwide and about one in four on US tablets.

  • On desktops worldwide, Google holds 78.12%, Bing 14.62%, Yahoo 3.35%, Yandex 1.51% and DuckDuckGo 0.94% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • On tablets worldwide, Google holds 84.89% and Bing 11.5% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • On US desktops, Google holds 74.71%, Bing 18.8%, Yahoo 4.11% and DuckDuckGo 1.94% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • On US tablets, Bing holds 26.47% against Google's 69.33% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • On US phones, Google holds 94.13% and Bing 2.15% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • In the UK, Bing holds 18.33% of desktop searches against Google's 75.99% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • On UK phones, Google holds 98.03% and Bing 0.43% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • In Japan, Bing leads on desktops with 51.83% against Google's 42.17% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • On Japanese phones, Google holds 85.08% and Yahoo 11.79% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • In a vendor panel of desktop users, Google's US share fell to a low of 92.1% in December 2025 and recovered to 94.3% by March 2026 (Datos, State of Search Q1 2026 preview, Apr 2026).
  • In the same panel, Google's share of EU and UK desktop searches fell from 96.0% in October 2025 to 93.9% in December and recovered to 95.5% in early 2026 (Datos, State of Search Q1 2026 preview, Apr 2026).

Where does Google not lead?

In China and Russia, and nowhere else among large markets. A regional or local engine still holds between 15% and 43% of searches in South Korea, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkey and the Czech Republic.

  • In China, Baidu holds 46.65%, Bing 21.76%, Yandex 14.98%, Haosou 12.26% and Google 1.46% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • In Russia, Yandex holds 70.33% and Google 28.12% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • In South Korea, Google holds 47.97% and Naver 43.06% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • In Belarus, Yandex holds 38.54% against Google's 58.98% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • In Kazakhstan, Yandex holds 29.72% against Google's 68.15% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • In Turkey, Yandex holds 25.19% against Google's 73.42% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • In the Czech Republic, Seznam holds 15.05% against Google's 78.71% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • In Taiwan, Yahoo holds 11.37% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • In Viet Nam, Coc Coc holds 5.92% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).

How far does Google's share vary across big markets?

From about 80% in Switzerland to 99% in Thailand. Bing's strength in German-speaking Europe and North America explains most of the lower readings.

  • Google holds 99.37% of searches in Thailand (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • Google holds 96.63% of searches in India, where Bing is second with 1.92% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • Google holds 93.81% of searches in Spain (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • Google holds 87.84% of searches in Germany, where Bing has 6.49% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • Google holds 85.3% of searches in Canada, where Bing has 10.06% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • Google holds 80.19% of searches in Switzerland, where Bing has 12.11% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).

How have shares moved since 2009?

Slowly at the top and quickly at the edges. The figures in this list come from the monthly data StatCounter publishes for download, which can differ by up to 0.3 percentage points from the headline table on its country pages.

  • Yahoo's worldwide share was 5.91% in January 2009 and 1.36% in September 2026 (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • Bing first passed 5% worldwide in March 2026 and reached 5.27% in September 2026, the highest monthly reading in a series that starts in January 2009 (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • DuckDuckGo peaked at 0.95% worldwide in July 2025 and was at 0.74% in September 2026 (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • In the US, Bing's share rose from 6.77% in October 2024 to 10.45% in February 2026 (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • In the US, DuckDuckGo fell from 2.53% in September 2025 to 1.52% in June 2026 (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • Baidu held 86.95% of Chinese searches in August 2015 and 63.33% in September 2025 (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • Yahoo held 40.49% of Japanese searches in July 2015 (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • Naver held 61.78% of South Korean searches in October 2011 (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • Yandex's share of Russian searches rose from 41.69% in September 2021 to a peak of 76.19% in May 2025, when Google's fell to 21.72% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • Yandex's share of Turkish searches peaked at 52.83% in October 2024 and was 33.17% a year later (StatCounter, Sep 2026).

Do privacy-focused and regional engines have real audiences?

Yes, in absolute terms. Their shares are small, but DuckDuckGo and Brave each serve billions of searches a month, and the national engines reach hundreds of millions of people.

Brave by the numbers: Brave Search handles 80 million queries per day, 2.4 billion per month and 28.9 billion per year, and the Brave browser has 120 million monthly active users
Figure 3: Brave reports more than 80 million Brave Search queries a day and 120 million monthly browser users, which shows an independent index running at a scale of billions of queries a year. Source: Brave, About Brave, Oct 2026. Screenshot of the company's own figures, cropped, captured 14 Oct 2026. Company-reported numbers.

How many searches do DuckDuckGo, Brave and Kagi handle?

Billions a month for DuckDuckGo and Brave, and about a million a day for Kagi, the paid engine. All the figures here are reported by the companies.

  • DuckDuckGo reports 9 million downloads a month of its apps and browser (DuckDuckGo, Oct 2026).
  • Brave Search reports more than 80 million queries a day, 2.4 billion a month and 28.9 billion a year (Brave, Oct 2026).
  • The Brave browser has more than 120 million monthly active users and 51 million daily active users (Brave, Oct 2026).
  • Brave's AI answers appear on a quarter of daily queries, about 20 million a day (Brave, Oct 2026).
  • Kagi, which charges a subscription, counted 75,623 members and 1,017,000 queries in the past day (Kagi, Oct 2026).
  • Yahoo and DuckDuckGo syndicate their search results from Bing, the court found (US District Court for the District of Columbia, liability opinion, Aug 2024).
  • Brave began delivering 100% of its results from its own index within about two years, the court noted (US District Court for the District of Columbia, remedies opinion, Sep 2025).

Where are DuckDuckGo, Ecosia and Qwant strongest?

Austria, Indonesia and Sweden for DuckDuckGo, and France and Switzerland for Ecosia. None of them passes 2.4% in the countries listed here.

  • DuckDuckGo holds 2.38% of searches in Austria (StatCounter, Sep 2026), 2.21% in Indonesia (StatCounter, Sep 2026) and 2.11% in Sweden (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • Ecosia holds 1.34% in France and Qwant 0.86% (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • Ecosia holds 1.26% in Switzerland (StatCounter, Sep 2026) and 1.03% in Germany (StatCounter, Sep 2026).
  • In a vendor desktop panel, DuckDuckGo's US share peaked at 1.93% in January 2026 and fell to 1.21% by March (Datos, State of Search Q1 2026 preview, Apr 2026).
  • In the same panel, DuckDuckGo peaked at 1.83% of EU and UK desktop searches in December 2025 (Datos, State of Search Q1 2026 preview, Apr 2026).
  • Outside China and Russia, GWI found that use of Bing and DuckDuckGo rose over the 18 months to Q4 2025 while use of Google fell more slowly than search use overall (DataReportal, data from GWI, Apr 2026).
  • Ecosia began serving search results from EUSP, its European index built with Qwant, in Germany on 30 July 2026, after most of its French traffic had already moved to it (Ecosia, Jul 2026).
  • Ecosia aims to answer most German queries from EUSP by the end of 2026 (Ecosia, Jul 2026).
  • Ecosia added a setting that turns off all AI features, including AI overviews and AI chat, on 2 July 2026 (Ecosia, Jul 2026).

How large are Baidu, Yandex, Naver and Bing?

Each of the five is a top-25 website by traffic, and each is adding an AI layer to classic search.

A great deal. The default is the main way most people reach a search engine, and courts and regulators have now put numbers on it.

Court finding on US general search queries that run through challenged default access points: 28% Apple, 19.4% Android makers and carriers, 2.3% third-party browsers, and another 20% through Chrome
Figure 4: Paragraphs 62 and 63 of the August 2024 liability opinion put roughly 50% of US queries behind the challenged contracts and another 20% behind user-downloaded Chrome, which is the court's own measure of how much of search is decided by a default. Source: US District Court for the District of Columbia, United States v. Google LLC, liability opinion, page 29, Aug 2024. Screenshot of the opinion, cropped, captured 14 Oct 2026.

What share of searches run through paid defaults?

Roughly half in the US, and the stickiness of a default shows in what happens when one changes.

How much does Google pay for distribution?

Tens of billions of dollars a year, and the bill is still growing.

What have courts and regulators ordered?

In the US, a ban on exclusive deals but no ban on payments. In the UK and EU, rules aimed at choice and data access.

  • The court found in August 2024 that Google had an 89.2% share of US general search queries and 94.9% on mobile (US District Court for the District of Columbia, liability opinion, Aug 2024).
  • The court's September 2025 remedies bar Google from exclusive contracts for Search, Chrome, Assistant and the Gemini app, and from tying revenue-share payments to keeping its apps in place for more than one year (US District Court for the District of Columbia, remedies opinion, Sep 2025).
  • The court did not order Google to divest Chrome, did not ban payments to distribution partners and did not require choice screens (US District Court for the District of Columbia, remedies opinion, Sep 2025).
  • Qualified competitors will receive some search index and user-interaction data and can license Google's search results, capped at 40% of their queries in the first year, and the judgment runs for six years (US District Court for the District of Columbia, remedies opinion, Sep 2025).
  • A study cited in the opinion found that the choice screens mandated on Android devices in Europe cut Google's share there by between 0.5% and 1.5% (US District Court for the District of Columbia, remedies opinion, Sep 2025).
  • On 23 September 2026 the CMA proposed that Google show Android and Chrome users a choice of search services at first use and then once a year, with AI assistants eligible to appear (CMA, Sep 2026).
  • The CMA expects to decide on that choice requirement by the end of 2026 (CMA, Sep 2026).
  • On 16 July 2026 the European Commission specified how Google must share search data with rival search engines, and made AI chatbots with search functions eligible to receive it (European Commission, Jul 2026).
  • Japan's regulator issued a cease and desist order against Google on 15 April 2025 over Android search preinstallation terms in force since July 2020 at the latest (Japan Fair Trade Commission, Apr 2025).

Not yet. They have taken a measurable slice of the questions that need an answer or an opinion, and left navigation and shopping to search engines.

Main channels people use to research brands: search engines 45.8%, social networks 41.3%, consumer reviews 35.4%, brand websites 32.2%, artificial intelligence 22.1%
Figure 5: Search engines are still the first stop for brand research, but social networks are close behind and AI services sit below video sites, which means the search box now shares the research journey with social networks, reviews, brand sites and apps. Source: DataReportal, data from GWI, Digital 2026 Mid-Year Global Update Report, Apr 2026. Chart published by the source, captured 14 Oct 2026.

Which channels do people use to research brands?

Search engines first, social networks second, then reviews and brand sites. AI services come eighth.

How big are social platforms as search tools?

Large in reach, and strongest where the query is visual or social. The filings and court record describe them as discovery tools that sit beside search.

How many queries do AI assistants handle next to search engines?

Far fewer than Google, though the gap is closing from a small base. The CMA, the courts and a desktop panel all show the same direction.

For the referral side of this shift, see AI chatbot traffic statistics and AI search statistics.

How much do people search by voice and by image?

Voice is a small share of search tasks, while camera and screen search now run on hundreds of millions of devices.

Share of US adults who say they have smart home devices that use AI: smart speaker 35%, smart doorbell 18%, robot vacuum 13%, smart thermostat 11%
Figure 6: 35% of US adults say they have a smart speaker that uses AI, far ahead of doorbells, vacuums and thermostats, which is the installed base any voice search habit has to grow from. Source: Pew Research Center, Americans and AI 2026, Jun 2026. Chart published by the source, captured 14 Oct 2026.

Common as a device, rare as a first choice. Fewer than one in ten UK smartphone users names a voice assistant as the way they most often search for anything.

  • Voice assistants are the method most often used for simple information by 5% of UK smartphone users and for less simple information by 6% (CMA, consumer survey data tables, Jun 2025).
  • Voice assistants are the method most often used for finding a specific website by 4% and for finding a product to buy by 2% (CMA, consumer survey data tables, Jun 2025).
  • The survey's wording excluded Alexa and Siri from its definition of an AI product, so voice assistants and AI chatbots were counted separately (CMA, consumer survey report, Jun 2025).
  • The European Commission's July 2026 specification lets Android users activate a rival AI assistant by voice, as they can with "Hey Google", and lets it act inside apps; the Commission puts the affected group at 60% of EU users, who have an Android device (European Commission, Jul 2026).

Large on Android and on Pinterest, and growing fastest where AI can read the image.

Methodology and Sources

We collected these figures on 14 October 2026 and opened every link that day to confirm that it loads, carries the number and shows its date. Each number comes from the organisation that produced it: a US federal court (the liability and remedies opinions in United States v. Google), regulators and statistics bodies (the UK CMA, the European Commission, Japan's Fair Trade Commission and China's CNNIC), company filings and announcements (Alphabet, Baidu, Yandex, Naver, Pinterest, Reddit, Google, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Kagi and Ecosia), survey and measurement firms that run their own panels (DataReportal with GWI and Similarweb, StatCounter, Pew Research Center, the Reuters Institute) and one vendor panel (Datos). Company-reported usage figures are labelled as such. StatCounter infers share from the search referrals that reach the more than one million sites that carry its code, not from queries counted at the engines, and revises its figures after month end. Monthly download data and the headline tables on its country pages can differ by up to 0.3 percentage points, so each list uses one or the other. CMA figures that the regulator published as ranges are quoted as ranges. Roundups and "statistics" pages that repeat other people's numbers were not used, and where a publisher's page blocks automated access the number was dropped. We refresh the page monthly.

Sources

Glossary

  • Access point: any place a person can start a search, such as a browser address bar, a home-screen widget, a voice assistant or an app.
  • AI Overviews / AI Mode: Google's AI-written answers at the top of search results and its conversational search mode.
  • CMA: the UK Competition and Markets Authority.
  • CNNIC: the China Internet Network Information Center, which runs China's national internet survey.
  • Default: the search engine a device or browser uses unless the person changes it.
  • EUSP: European Search Perspective, the search index built by Ecosia and Qwant.
  • GSE: general search engine, the court's term for services such as Google and Bing.
  • GWI: the research company whose survey DataReportal uses for search and brand-research figures.
  • MADA / RSA: Google's Mobile Application Distribution Agreement and revenue share agreement with Android phone makers and carriers.
  • MAU: monthly active users.
  • Navigational query: a search typed to reach a known website, such as a brand name.
  • Syndication: licensing search results or ads from one engine to power another.
  • TAC: traffic acquisition costs, the payments Google makes to partners that send it search traffic.

Cite this page

Every figure here links to the study that produced it. Quote any of them with a link to this page or the original source.

BlazeHive. "165 Search Engine Usage Statistics October 2026." BlazeHive, October 2026. https://www.blazehive.io/statistics/search-engine-usage-statistics/
<a href="https://www.blazehive.io/statistics/search-engine-usage-statistics/">Search Engine Usage Statistics</a> (BlazeHive, October 2026)
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